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GEORGE ELIOT'S 



CONJUGAL ETHICS. 



BY L. B. H 



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1886. 

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CONJUGAL ETHICS, 



of 



As Exemplified in the Writings 
George Eliot.* 
i. 

A woman of much thought and practical 
wisdom once said. that the only unhappy 
marriage was where neither husband nor 
wire could longer be of use one to the other. 

This puts the tragedy of marital life on so 
much more unselfish and noble a plane than 
it Is customary to sea it that the words take 
on a deep significance. They bar away all 
question of pleasure, of superficial "compat- 
ibility," of the selfish., "abused" feeling 
which generates more misery than any other 
cause In all forms of domestic life; and, In- 
stead, life* husband and wife to the serene 
region where unselfishness Is the aim, and 
the question, How can I best serve, takejthe 
place of ^Why doesn't he, or she, serve me? 

Of course, there are many— sorrowfully 
many— marriages which, even by this meas- 
ure, must oe pronounced failures; where na- 
tures which have long rasped on one an- 
other, or long injured one another, are sorest 
to Just that touch which should be the most 
soothing; where the wife has to say to her- 
self, "If I were dead my husband would have 
less temptation to be brutal, unfaithful, un- 
kind," and has to live carrying this crushing 
burden; or the man Is forced to admit that 
his wife is more irritable, more unjust, more 
sinful, than as though his presence were 
wiped off. from the face of the earth. But 
these are rare compared to the mass of mar- 
riages far less gravely undermined, and 
which, Instead of being tragedies where 
death is the only solution, can be worked 
around into reconciliation and true service 
of one another. 

On the other hand, quite as rare as the 
tragic unions, are those where perfect com- 
munion of living exists, one case alone of 
which, however, is enough to.light a world. 
The vast majority of marriages, added to 
every o.ay, every hour, swing slowly between 
these two extremes, and it Is these which 
need help to make years develop the best 
tendencies Instead of the worst. 

Who, of all great llte-portrayers. can have 
thought more of the modern problems of 
marriage tban George Eliot? Her experience, 
as well as her observation, must have forced 
them upon her. Her deep perceptions, her 
keen thought, must have seen into their In- 
ner workings, and she must have given us 
the solution In those writings which are more 
like Shakspeare's In their wide universality 
than any modern author's. The very fact of 
her example teaching a questionable course 
of action has Influenced her writings to the 
utmost emphasis in regard to following the 
law and complying with Institutional life. 
6he. seems to have said to herself— ir one may 
Judge from her acts— "My individual life is 
my own; I shall lead It, and sacrifice it, as I 



f. 



04 



deem best; but when It comes to a question 
of what I shall teach the mass, there I must 
be very careful; tnere I must portray only 
what will apply universally; there I must 
give types, not only Individual idiosyncra- 
sies." Hers was a profoundly earnest mind, 
feeling deeply the weight of Its own vast re- 
sponsibility, and in every page she wrote Is 
to be found the traces of unselfish teaching, 
of righteous living and of pure thought. The 
weight of her example she d.'d not calculate, 
or I |think the thought of that hu- 
manity for which she lived In her 
highest moments might have deterred 
her from a step which was certainly 
wrong. The very fact of the nobility and 
purity with which her life and Mr. Lewes' 
were surrounded; the feeling that what de- 
Teloped such fine characters and rare genius 
couid not be wrong, has done Incalculable 
Injury to the moral judgment of the world at 
large. We are bound to pierce through all 
these appearances, and clearly recognize the 
fact that what is not a true law for all Is 
not true for one, and that, no matter what 
Its happy results in an individual Instance, 
the act of undermining the law of marriage, 
which is the cornerstone of civilization, is 
wrong. 

At the same time that we recognize this we 
must also recognize that George Eliot did 
what she thought was right, and therefore 
has claim to our revereutlal respect. She was 
always for making truth the law, rather than 
taking the law as truth. This may have led 
her to her life's one great mistake, but it also 
led her to give the world the essence of 
things, rather than their form: or to show 
the essence and the form in conflict. In none 
of her books is she radical; rather conserva- 
tive of the finer elements of morality as well 
as their established Institutions. These last 
are, of course, the law for all men. Opinion 
becomes principle by passing through the 
mind of humanity. Unless a truth is true for 
all, It is true for none. The solidarity of man- 
kind precludes one's having a truth which 
another can not, If he villi, share. Yet eacn 
person is an individual different from all the 
rest. *» A onejMw- revealed something which 
all the world must miss, unless he chooses to 
share his gift; to another, anothar gift. 
George Eliot took types to portray, but indi- 
vidual types. Wiio could follow one of her 
Bxamples literally? Who may not be profited 
by the stu^y 1 of any one of her characters? 

"Amos Barton" was the first story George 
Eliot wrote, and which makes part of her 
"Scenes ot Clerical T^ife." It is a curious 
fact that In a world where sin is common to 
lill meu— and clergymen aro certainly not a 
race apart— they s\iould bo expected to be 
sinless, or else are regarded as hj-pocrltes. 
81dney Smith once remarked bitterly that 
humanity was looked upon as having three 
sexes— men, women and clergymen. Es- 
pecially is this true as to chastity. Public 
opinion holds them almost as closely to 
morality— that is, they are almost as severe- 



ly and relentlessly condemned If they fall— as 
women. A merchant may sin against purity, 
or In any wayexceptlmslness principles, and 
who will think of turning him out of tlie Ex- 
change? A lawyer may sin similarly, and 
he will not he turned from the courts; but let 
a clergyman sin In any known way ana his 
pulpit no longer holds hiin. Who will listen 
to words of goodness from the lips of a sin- 
ner? We require a Christ to teach us to leave 
sin and follow him, and we want to carefully 
inspect his whole life and he sure he is sinless 
before we do follow him. There is something 
unreasonable in thi3 discrimination against 
clergymen, but were It only extended so as 
to Include all mankind there would be a ' 
world of rejoicing. 

Mr. Barton is a clergyman, and, for char- 
ity, takes into his home, with his wife's 
hearty approval, a woman who v ls really all 
she should be, but does not appear so. The 
village begins to talk, the parish attendance 
dwindles in consequence, hard times come 
upon the clerical family ; the woman has a 
sudden revelation of the gossip, and leaves, 
but too late, for the overworked wife dies, 
and with the lady's departure and the wife's 
death all the parishioners' affection comes 
Dack to the husband, who is left, however, 
broken-hearted. Even the appearance of 
evil must be avoided, or slanderers' tongues 
will talk and beget the miseries of suspicion, 
desertion and death! 

In "Mr. Giml's Love Story" there is shown 
the hopelessness of trying to piece a broken 
heart. The only true sanctlflcation of mar- 
riage Is a love which leaves no doubts or ri- 
vals. To It should be added wisdom, but in- 
tuitions sometimes serve instead of this, and 
nothing serves instead of love. There Is a 
story told in an Eastern book of the sun-god 
•fcudra kissing the lips of a maiden as she en- 
ters the great World-chamber. She feels the 
divine touch, but the god vanishes with it, 
and she goes forth to seek him, and aD last 

(finds him in the high hill country. But after 
a while the strain of the godlike presence Is 
too great upon her, aud she strays away to 
where less will be required of her, and comes 
into a lower land, where many men seek to 
win her, for her beauty under the sun god's 
Influence^ has become strangely powerful. 
Finally one of her wooers succeeds, but when 
she yields her rlgh lover lets his curse fall 
upon her, and she rests forever under the 
blighting shadow of having deserted her 

ideal. So it is with every maiden, every per - 
son who- knows what love maybe, or has 
been, ana then descends to a lower plane. 
Many are the lips that are not kissed by this 
divine ideal, and they may seek and find con- 
tentment lower down, but woe to those who 
know and yet deny, who have been once em- 
braced by the fiery sun -god, and, Instead of 
living true, seek lower pleasures. Sadness 
and self-reproach, if nothing worse, will for- 
ever be their companions. 






In "Janet's llepentauce" a heart-breaking 
story is told of a woman who marries a bru- 
tal arunkard, who finally loses even the sem- 
blance of affection , and cares for his wife 
only as a victim entirely at his mercy, whom 
he can beat, kick and bully to the fullest bent 
of his cruelty without anyone^ being able 
to Interfere. To deaden her sensitive nerves, 
of mind as well as body, she* takes to drink- 
ing, too, and one of the most tragic of mar 
riages is thus produced. Each debases the 
other, for he loses the respect for her which 
she could always have commanded, and which 
might have had its effect in time If she had 
lived true to herself, and he is dragging her 
down to hell with htm. Of course there is uo 
solution for this but death. He dies, and she 
recovers through the Intervention of a true 
Christian minister, who has himself done 
evil and repented, and knows'how to bring 
the sinning back. It Is a story full of the 
finest feeling and suggestion. It refutes the 
saying of a little Sister of Charity who, when 
asked if a reformed woman should be placed 
at the head of a reformatory, said: "No, no; 
they need some one whom they can rever- 
ence, sure that she has never sinned." Should 
not our reverence be also given to those who 
have sinned, but have conquered sin? 

This story of Janet's suggests an opposing 
one of a woman In Colorado who married a 
man accustomed to drink, but only after he 
had promised never to drink again, and had 
withheld from It for a year. Six months 
after their marriage he came home drunk. 
She said nothing, though her heart was 
breaking, but waited patiently for some little 
money of her own to come in, and then went 
to the saloon which her husband now fre- 
quented, and where most of "the boys," 
whom she knew from being a leader in social 
affairs in the little mining town, were assem- 
bled. 

"Come," said she, •'I'll treat you all; 
we'll have a merry eveninsr." 

They looked at her In amazement, but she 
ordered the liquor and drank off her glass 
with a dashing air. They chatted awhile, 
and presently she said: 

"We'll have another, boys; come on," and 
they all drank again, her husband, who had 
thought it at first a bit of bravado, now be- 
ginning to look sober, aud to watch her 
anxiously. 

After a little she offered them afnother drink, 
and as she rose she found herself un- 
steady. "But I didn't care," she said, in 
telling the story. "I didn't want to beany 
better than my husband, and if he was going 
to get drunk, why, so was I." But her hus- 
band stopped her. He didn't let her reach 
the bar before he drew her arm through his 
and said quietly: "That's enough, Sue; we'll 
go home." And go home they did, and he 
has never been seen in a saloon nor drunk 
since. 

This action of the wife's has been highly 
praised, as noble, unselfish and courageous, 
but it is at least a question whether it is a 



JlT. ■** - **tSLaLZ, 7t">. a^— /J 



virtue to degrade oneseit in order to reclaim 
another, and to degrade the ideal of that 
other also. Christ ate and drank with pub- 
licans and sinners, but he never made hlmseir 
a publican nor a sinner. He never tried to 
overcome evil with evil, but always evil with 
good. And the idea of one's wishing to be 
like another, no matter how much loved, in 
his faults, would be dangerous doctrine. Of 
course, the wife has Just as much, Identically 
the same, right to get drunk, or to do any 
other evil thing, as the husband has ; but that 
is absolutely nil. Neither of them has any 
right whatever to do what they know to be 
wrong. One must be true to oneself prima- 
rily, and if so he can not then be false to any 
man. "Only so far as a man is happily mar- 
ried to himself (that Is, in harmonious rela- 
tions with himself) , is he fit for married life, ' ' 
says Novalis. An^ "unless a man has 'cleared 
up ' himself, he 6uu at best but enter into am- 
biguous relations with another. • ' 



♦Copyright. 



CONJUGAL ETHICS, 

As Exemplified In the Writings of 

George Eliot. * 

"Adam Bede" is a book many persons con- 
sider George Eliot's masterpiece. It is fuil 
of Interest, variety, clearly drawn charac- 
ters, strong ethical teaching and wit. Mrs. 
Poyser is a person English literature could 111 
afford to lose, and her sayings have become 
almost as familiar as Falstaff's. though ap- 
pealing to a much finer sense of humor. The 
story of the book is too well known to need 
recapitulation. To some Hetty and Arthur 
Donnithorne seem the principal characters; 
toothers Dinah Morris and Adam Bede. The 
latter were the ones the author evidently in- 
tended as central figures from the title of her 
book, and, moreover, they are the positive 
characters, the others being only negative 
Dnes. For evil is always negative; It is the 
spirit which denies— denies fruition to the 
good in us. Goodness, on the other hand, 
affirms all that is affirmative in the universe, 
be it life, love, truth or beauty. 

It has been remarked that tragedy is more 
Interesting to most persons, because it shows 
as how men sin, and how dreadful are the 
consequences, and so keeps us from sinning. 
The characters depicted suffer not alone for 
themselves but vicariously; they suffer for 
us, and so there is a certain selfishness in our 
admiration. When we advance further we 
like better to see those situations set before 
us where tempatlon comes and Is resisted, 
showing us how we also may resist. But the 
more perfect development is where we wish 
to see how those better than we became so.. 
It is worth noticing that a large number of 
persons throughout the land have 
entered the second stage, many ob- 
jecting to see tragedies represented in the 
theater because they excite too vivid sympa- 
thies (though there is another reason for this, 
lnasnfuch as men hate to have their eyes f orcl - 
bly opened to the consequences of acts they 
are performing or wish to perform), and a 
"good ending" to a novel is a clamorous de- 
mand. The chief trouble with this demand Is 
that many people do not seem to understand 
what a good ending is. If It ends In happi- 
ness to the principal characters, the public is 
content; though in reality this may be the 
worst possible end. If happiness results from 
svrong, and wicked deeds escape the condem- 
nation of justice in an easy Impartiality of 
happiness all around, there is neither art nor 
value In the booK. This earth Is but a segajeut 
of the infinite circle, but even here the curve 
Is sufficiently seen to tell the trend of the 
whole. This perception is the basis of law, 
all laws. The object of punishment, retribu- 
tion, Is that man may be made responsible 
for his deeds. It Is the first step in spiritual 
development, and all charity which does 
away with It is merciless. If a man chooses 
to steal, he must oe put In prison so that he 
may see that he steals his own time and 
bor, the fruit of which he has tried to si- 



Is a source of 
at low water, 
spring sun and 
through to roll 



from others. If a man chooses to sacrifice 
napplness to principle, blessedness is his re- 
ward. 

The inevitable sequence of effects on causes 
Is one of the truths least recognized, and here 
George Eliot has done incalculable service to 
humanity; for she shows with the masterly 
touch of a deep seer how seeds once sown in 
fertile soil sprout and grow^wa. amazing, and 
often frightful, results, and how essential It 
Is to keep from sowing the seed if we do not 
want the fruits thereof. Tako the case of I 
poor little Hetty, and Arthur Donnichorne, 
who was much more to blame. The gratified 
ranlty of the ignorant girl at the start, which 
was hardly other than innocent; the dallying 
with temptation, which he was constantly j 
resolving to overcome, of the man; these 
seemed small causes to produce the terrible 
results of Infanticide and being led to the 
scaffold for murder. So Is the acorn small, 
yet let it fall in favorable soil, and give it 
time, and it will become an oak. The little 
break in the levee, which 
amusement or indifference 
when the snows melt In the 
rain lets the rushing flood 
resistless over cultivated fields, and homes, 
and living beings. Is'o action Is without Its 
result. The chain of consequences we each 
drag after us, and every link of which we 
have freely chosen— for we could have chosen 
not to lift it at the moment of decision— is 
never-ending and is surely there. Wo can 
not escape from It while circumstance is a 
factor in our lives, as it must be on earth. 
The best we can do is to accept it as ours, 
and do earnestly what Is so often frivolously 
spoken, make the best of it. This Arthur 
Uonnlthorne aid in rescuing iletty rrom the 
scaffold, even at the eleventh hour He idea 
tided himself publicly with her at this su- 
preme moment, as he had done privately be 
fore, and he, as well as she, led a life of ex- 
piation afterward. 

But it is one of the most dreadful results of 
evil that we can not sin to ourselves alone. 
Erancesea and Faolo are driven around hell 
forever in one another's arms; and even this 
Is not all. We live in a vicarious world, and 
what we do affects others near and far. Thus 
Hetty and Arthur came very near destroying 
all chance of happiness to Dinah and Adam. 
Our responsibility spreads out iu rings of 
which we can see no end, and tne unknown 
consequences of our deeds are often our great- 
est responsibility, just as the dark rays of the 
sun are the warmest and nlbst fertilizing. 
We can not say, "Oh, this little lie won't hurt 
anybody, " and so speak it, for we have no 
moans of knowing what harm that little lie 
may do. A footfall on the snow in the Alps 
may cause an avalanche and bury a village. 
Dur lives are all bound together into an elec- 
tric chain; break or jar the current, and the 
thrill is felt through the whole length and 
may deal death to some. But if we do right 
this moment and always, it can create no 
evil. 



This fact of the vlcarlousness of humanity 
explains why sometimes a man is punished 
out of all proportion to his sin. He can not 
detach himself from his race, and it may be 
that his slight evil deed has been passed on 
and grown stronger and larger until he Is 
avershadowed by the vast banyan tree that 
iprung from his little seed. But just as true 
as this is the fact that each one of us has it In 
ais or her own hands to stop the transmission 
of evil and alter it to good. The Inheritance 
passed from man to man comes to each one, 
und each has the power, if the will, to change 
its form from evil to endurance by saying, ' 'I 
will suffer to death rather than -to- do this 
Bin." Then the* inheritance that he gives us 
Is not poisoned, but becomes the cup of life 
to all. Alas, that as the test is given to each 
of us, of more or less force and subtlety, we 
one by one fail ! How sublime it makes the 
figures of those stand forth who have stem- 
med the current of sin in their own persons, 
and have thus become unspeakably great 
benefactors to the race! Yet they were made 
of flesh and blood, even as we are. 

Of such was Dinah Morris. She lived always 
close to the divine, and drew her life from none 
but high sources. There was no noble theory 
she had which she did not put into practice; 
there was no tender deed to be done, but that 
she did It; no laborious work to undertake, 
but that she undertook it. Yet, with all her 
tenderness, she did not fall into Injustice 
through unwise mercy When every one 
else deserted Hetty in her prison, where she 
lat In stony silence, Dinah went to her, and 
staid with her, and talked with her, show- 
ing her not alone the infinite love of God, but 
Che awful character of her crime, and thus 
softened the hardheartedness which had 
been one of the sources of her sin Into repent- 
ance and love. 

Rev. Mr. Heber Newton, in a recent ser- 
mon, asks: "Were Jesus on the earth to- 
day, in what church could He come forward 
for membership?" and answers, in effect, 
that the creed of each church would exclude 
Him. If so, which might be questioned, the 
spirit pf each church would* surely admit 
Him; for, as some one well says, In the mod- 
ern church, ''unanimity of spirit, not iden- 
tity of creed," Is the great aim. He would 
find Himself at home in the Catholic Church, 
in the Evangelical churches. In the Unitarian 

Church, In fact, wherever there were earnest 
men and women seeking to live according to 
a higher standard than that of expedi- 
ency. Further than this, he would also 
find himself at home— that is. vlfta- 
ally understood and appreciated— outside of 
any of the churches; as, for instance, in the 
hearts who have, like George Eliot, ceased to 
believe in the outer tenets of Christianity, and 
yet who hold so close to the spirit— or rather 
have become so permeated by the spirit— of 
love and spiritual beauty which it teaches, 
that they are able to create in flesh and blood 
such characters as Dinah Morris'. 






Adam Bede was Dinah's counterpart. Seth 
had too much of her own nature to answer 
her needs, or for her to be able to do for him 
what she could for Adam. They were well 
matched in the sense that they were well 
completed, which is what marriage should 
do for us. There is another kind of marriage, 
however, which is often a necessity to true 
living, and that is a marriage of reparation. 
If Arthur Donnithorne had married Hetty 
and shared her punishment as he had her sin. 
It would have been the nobler solution of the 
problem of the book, the only ti-ue repara- 
tion, because the only adequate proof of re- 
pentance. But, as Lainer has well said, 
George Eliot depicts life as it should be in 
terms of what it is, and there is little proba- 
bility that in the difference of. social equality 
between Hetty and Arthur there should be in 
aristocratic England any thought of mar- 
riage. Christianity has yet much work to do 
in the. evolution of social relations to bring 
men to the point of realizing that in morality 
at least there is perfect equality, the same 
demand being made on every human being, 
be he king or slave, genius or fool, man or 
woman. 

"The Mill on the Floss" was the next work 
of George Eliot's,and=here we have the prob- 
lem of infidelity before marriage solved in a 
way which I can not help calling peculiarly 
Christian; that is, it is only Christian art 
that could make the end of this booK satisfy 
us as it does. It is a thoroughly modern prob- 
lem and a modern solution. Maggie, the 
heroine, a girl of ardent, Imaginative and 
finely moral nature, has a cousin, Lucy, who 
is engaged to Stephen Guest. She herself is 
engaged to a deformed artist, Philip Wakem. 
Stephen and Maggie come to love one an- 
other with a passionate intensity, far ex- 
ceeding what either has ever known before, 
and which, ;just as they have determined 
never to see one another again, leads them, 
through favoring circumstances, almost to 
the brink of marriage. They are staid in 
time, however, by Maggie's final determina- 
tion not to be a party to this treachery— not 
to buy her happiness at the cost of others' 
misery, the thought of which would rob her- 
self of all real happiness. In her great temp- 
tation—for, of course, Stephen does all he 
cau to overcome her virtuous intention— she 
says very finely: "We can't choose happiness 
either for ourselves or for another; we can't 
tell where that will lie. We can only choose 
whether we will .indulge ourselves In the 
present moment, or whether we will re- 
nounce that, for the sake of obeying the 
divine voice within us— for the sake of being 
true to all the motives that sanctify our 
lives." She made her choice; she did re- 
nounce, and held by her decision with a 
bravery only to be understood by tnose who 
have had every form of temptation assail 
them after their strength has been drained 
away by the supreme renunciation. She 
was maligned, cast out, disowned by her 
brother, and believed in only by those she 
had most injured, Lucy and Philip, Put 



she conquered, and the flood— death— came to 
her as a release. It is not a tragic end, in 
the sense that tragedy is the outcome of a 
fatal defect in character or situation. Maggie 
had the capacity and the surroundings which 
would have enabled her to live and regain the 
esteem of all those from whom It was worth 
having; but, having conquered her tempta- 
tions and herself, she was rewarded with 
death. This is why it Is so peculiarly a Chris- 
tian end. Heath here does not mean defeat, 
but victory. The grave is merely a gateway 
through which one emerges to a larger life. 
It is the call, gladly obeyed, to those who 
have served well, and who are now told 
to come up higher. And Philip showed him- 
self to be of the same spirit as Maggie. 
Stephen and Lucy married, years after; Philip 
never married. He never relinquished 
Maggie, for he felt himself closer to her than 
Stephen in spite of all, and no one took her 
place to him; no one could. He did not need 
Jp see her to believe in her, nor to be with 
her to love her. By her death she became to 
him one of those spiritual possessions, which 
neither time nor moth can corrupt, nor thief 
break through to steal. L. B. H. 



♦Copyright. 






t/2.-; r v*T,u4 &uric - 4 ^iM-okat , 



v _ 



CONJUGAL ETHICS. 



As 



Exemplified in the Writings of 
George Eliot.* 



in. 



««A little child shall lead them," Is the test 
on which "Silas Marner" Is based. From It 
George Eliot drew one of those incomparable 
pictures which are her peculiar glory, of a 
complete regeneration, a conversion from 
selfishness into love, a being born anew- 
born of the spirit of unselfishness, and there- 
fore into happiness. 

The story is of a poor miser whose hoard Is 
stolen one night, taking with it the monoma- 
niac's whole interest in life. His mind be- 
comes vague and purposeless, but he is pres- 
ently restored to a healthier condition by 
finding on his hearthstone a pile of gold 
gleaming in the firelight, which turns out to 
be the warm, soft curls on a girl baby's head. 
This little child leads him back into Sanity 
ana love and happiness. She is, however, 
the daughter of the squire who lives near by, 
and who married a low woman whom he re- 
fused to acknowledge as his wife. He knows 
Effle to be his daughter from the first, 
but since his wife has died in the 
snow, he makes no attempt to claim 
the child, and Instead marries a clear-eyed, 
noble woman, without letting her know of 
his previous marriage. He keeps his secret 
for fifteen years, and then, his conscience 
being shocked into activity by the discovery 
at the bottom of a pit, which had suddenly 
gone dry, of his brother's skeleton, with the 
weaver's stolen gold beside It, he tells his 
wife the secret of his own lite. She takes it 
very silently, only saying when he tries to 
excuse himself by his love for her, "I wasn't 
worth doiner wrong for, Godfrey; nothing Is 
In this world." Her chief thought is how 
much the daughter has lost all these years. 
"The wrong to me is but little," she tells her 
husband; "you've made it up to me—you've 
been good to me for fifteen years. It's an- 
other you did the wrong to, and I doubt it 
can never be made up for." He comes to 
realize this later, when he finds that his 
daughter elects to remain with the one who 
has been a real father to her, the old weaver, 
and thus makes Godfrey's late restitution 
Impossible. As he says to his wife, "Jhere's 
debts we can't pay like money debts, by pay- 
ing extra for the years that have slipped by . " 
No, but neither is there any such thing as 
spiritual bankruptcy. There are Infinite op- 
portunities afforded us. and somewhere we 
are bound to succeed and pay our debts with 
all their compound Interest to the last farth- 
ing. Some one said that true religion con- 
sisted in belief In God, and paying 100 cents 
on the dollar; and, if taken up into spiritual 
wealth, the remark is not a bad one. 

In "Romola" George Ellot'c Idea of true 
conjugal ethics is depicted perhaps more 
plainly than In any other work, unless it be 



"Daniel Deronda." Here Is the sorrowfully 
common story of a mlsmated pair; a noble, 
unselfish woman with every aspiration and 
net climbing steadily towards the 11? ht, tied 
to a selfish, decaying nature eaten away from 
within by the persistent desire to please him- 
self, and to live in comfort and luxury at the 
expense, if need be, of all other goods what- 
soever. This is the first of the trio of novels 
which have been designated as unfolding 
George Eliot's different views of life, "Ro- 
mola" being the one where inherent charac- 
teristics develop themselves in spite of cir- 
cumstances; "Middlemarch," where cir- 
cumstances control character; and "Daniel 
Deronda," where circumstances and Indi- 
viduals share in the evolution. 

However this may be, in "Romola" the 
necessity of individual rectitude is depicted 
on both the affirmative and negative side 
with a force which makes one feel as if 
nothing in the world could approach it in 
Importance. The keeping sacred and unae- 
filed that tabernacle of God, our Integrity, 
Is the One essential thing for both Individuals 
and society. Unless all strive for It none can 
perfectly gain it. No one can be perfectly 
good any more than any person can be 
perfectly happy, so long as there 
Is evil or misery in the world. Romola, .with 
all her clear sight and righteous intentions, 
twice laid down her burden as being too 
heavy to bear; but presently her nature re- 
gained Its balance, and she recognized that 
her duty lay there, and nowhere else. Few, 
very few are guided by principles; most per- 
sons live, according to. circumstances, still, 
like the beasts, controlled by their environ- j 
ment, or impulse, or passion; but those who I 
once take the polar star of principle as their | 
guiding star have a steadfastness unobtain- 
able otherwise. Romola would not leave her 
husband though he had broken the vows and 
sanctity of matrimony; but neither would j 
she feign to him, nor screen his evils from 
others so as to deceive them. She would not 
sacrifice her integrity to any lesser duty, and 
all are lesser when compared with this. Even 
In desiring to help others, Individual recti- 
tude is our only sure means. The gates of 
hell are as much framed by love as those of 
heaven, says i>ante, for, If we do 
not lee the sinner realize the nature 
of his sin by our attitude toward 
It and him, he will continue to per- 
form it, and thus we should be more un- 
merciful to him than we could be in any 
other way. He who has not the Check of in- 
dividual principle must be checked by the 
principles of others, or he goes unchecked to 
ruin. Thus the solidarity of mankind decrees 
that he who forgives an unrepented sin 
makes himself an accomplice of it. 

A popular preacher in the city said the 
Dther day that if we did not love those whom 
we could not respect, we had no perception 
of the inner meaning of the gospels, inas- 
much as Christ loved men enough to die for 
them though they were too evil for Him to 



respect them. This might be questioned, ror 
In every man there is the possibility of good 
which one can respect and roster, and in all 
the Instances given, Christ perceived this 
undeveloped or only partially developed 
germ with unparalleled insight. At the same 
time, this can be best fostered at certain 
epochs by the ministry of indignation and 
chastisement. Christ's love for the Phari- 
sees was shown in this way, though ho died 
for them as much as for any others. So 
Romola would have been glad to die, as was 
- shown by her being willing even to live, for 
Tito, who stirred her deepest indignation. 
It is much harder to give up one's life Cor a 
friend in the daily sacrifice of living, 
than to give it up once for all in the grand 
surrender of dying. But even of this living 
sacrifice- Romola was capable. She loved Tito 
as she loved any of God's- creatures, but it 
was not a love such as most women have for 
their sinning husbands. She was too devoted 
to principle to desire personal nearness to 
one who had severed himself from all that 
was good and true. Her love was one which 
was Christ-like in its grief over wrong-doing 
and Its impotence to save, and Christ-like 
also in that it never paltered with evil nor 
said wrong was right by word or action. Her 
attitude toward Tessa— Tito's child-mistfess, 
who thinks herself his wife— is one of the 
most touching things in the book. Romola 
sees so clearly and feels so keenly the degrada- 
tion of being forced to live In even outward 
relations with Tito, that she seeks yearn 
ingly to find that this little Tessa is his real 
wife and that she, the proud Romola, is not 
bound to him. The outer aspect of things 
means so little ta her, compared to the inner 
vitalizatlons, that she would have rejoiced in 
the social branfl of infamy that would have 
set her free from loathed bonds. But she Is 
not fortunate enough to be so set free; she 



still bear and endure . her hus 
and her own life growing 



must . 

bandT ana ner own lire growing more 
ana^ more widely separated as each 
develops uninfluenced by the other, she 
climbing loftier and purer heights, he sink- 
ing deeper and deeper into foul abysses. 

It Is a tragic marriage; yet, though nothing 
would cause Romola to swerve from recti- 
tude, any more than anything could cause 
Tito to be upright, her life and character is a 
most beautiful example of one made perfect 
through suffering. Not until this perfection 
Is reached, to which Tito can add nothing 

more by any cross he might give her to 
bear— having given her all-does he die, and 
we are brought to ask ourselves. What bur- 
den is there which one who suffers unde- 
servedly can carry compared to that with 
which one is laden who Is guilty? Suffering 
will come to both saint and sinner so long as 
there Is evil In the world, but one results 
in "a happiness which we can only tell from 
pain by its being what we would choose be- 
fore anything else," and the other is "ca- 
lamity falling on a base mind, which Is the 
one form of sorrow that has no balm in It." 



benignant j / 
f-eae-many— 
p, ffl "Ro- I 



Conjugally, the lesson of the book Is 
of the utmost Importance; how to re- 
main pure beside corruption, how to hold 
sacred the marriage tie without condoning 
for an instant one jot or tittle of a consort's 
sins; how to take refuge from all evil in that 
Inner temple where the kingdom of heaven 
abides, and to carry into other lives the com 
fort and peace gained there— the benignant 
strength of one, transformed to joy 
all this is depicted, step by step 
mola." 

"Felix Holt" is quite another story, but 
the central thought is always the same, 
though putting on all the Protean forms of 
Individuality. The recoil on self— that self 
which Is God-centered and at one with the 
divine— is the inner meaning of all George 
Eliot's book3, and, In a great measure, of all 
earnest modern life. Individual insight, not 
authority. Is coming to be more and more the 
reliance of men's actions; individual percep- 
tion of right and truth, resulting, when 
joined wiih an educated will, In rectitude 
and probity. This Is a world-old need, con- 
stantly being more fulfilled, and therefore 
touching the human spirit to finer and finer 
issues. In Christianity— that concentration 
of attention on the kingdom of heaven which 
is within us, guided by our Father, who is in 
that heaven— the answer was first given which 
the centuries have been slowly working out. 
We have come to the recognition now that 
we are each the actors of our own acts, the 
sinners of our own sins. We have a sinner' 
within us, but also a redeemer, a hell as well 
as the kingdom of heaven, a Satan and a 
Christ. In so far as we Incline to one or to 
the other, they are- ourselves. But evil Is 
subjected to God— "then, now, and ever 
shall be"— therefore good will Inevitably 
triumph. Not only will, but does. Time is, 
so to speak, a thing of human Invention; God 
Inhabiteth eternity. 

The story of "Felix Holt" turns ea^a mis- 
appropriated Inheritance ensuing from a 
double wrong. Harold Transome, the pre- 
sumptive heir, Is the Illegitimate son of Mrs. 
Transome and a vulgar lawyer. The real 
heir is Esther Lyon, who is the child of a 
marriage between the former owner of the 
estate and a foreign wife. This wife, deserted 
by her husband, comes to Treby In 'search 
of him whose real name she does not know. 
When fainting from starvation on the road 
she begs a Dissenting minister who passes 
to save her child, and he takes them both into 
his own home. He loves her almost from the 
first, but not with the higher side of his 
nature, and there Is a long struggle between 
that higher and this lower. Gossip drives 
him from one parish to another, and finally 
he falls ill, and on his recovery the woman 
consents to marry him, ror he has succumbed 
to the temptation, which Is the one blot on 
an otherwise fair life, and marries, not even 
knowing whetherEsther's father is still living 
or not. 

As George Eliot says, *' What to one man Is 
the virtue which he has sunk below the possl- 



bllity of aspiring to Is to another the hack- 
sliding by which he forfeits his spiritual 
crown." 

Harold, meantime, goes to India, and re- 
turns after some years, bringing wioh him a 
child. He learns of Esther's rights, and in- 
stead of concealing them from her invites 
her to his house and tries to win her as his 
wife. His congenital dullness of moral per- 
ception is shown by his saying in answer to 
some question of Esther's about his child's 

other, that she was a person who need not 
enter Esther's mind, as she was only a slave. 
Esther is, however, strongly attracted by Felix 
Holt, who is a radical In every way, and who 
shows his affection for Esther principally by 
scolding her for her delicacy and love of re- 
finement. He Is something of a higher-class 
Adam Bede, stalwart, strong, and full of in- 
tegrity. This trait Is shown conspicuously 
by his dislike of his mother's supporting her- 
self by the sale of his father's patent medi- 
cines, which he, Felix, thinks are more in- 
jurious than remedial. The mother insists 
upon it that what was so prayed over can 
not help but be good, but this subjective 
'proof does not convince Felix, who finally in- 
duces her to desist from selling them. 
Harold, too, Is a man who, when there Is 
enough moral perception to produce a ques- 
tion in his mind, always chooses the right, 
however much it may tell against him. Thus 
when in a most dramatic scene ne learns his 
real parentage, he immediately tells Esther 
that a great shame has come upon him, and 
desists from his suit for her hand. She, how- 
ever, womanlike, is glad to be able to recon- 
cile conflicting claims dh. her sympathy by 
making a sacrifice which will raise ber in the 
esteem of the man she loves, and so she re- 
linquishes all right to the estate in Harold's 
favor, and thus repudiates Felix's denuncia- 
tions of her as one who loves luxury too well. 
Of course in the end Felix and Esther marry. 

The strongest points on conjugal ethics In 
this book are the contest' of passion and con- 
science in the mind of the minister, and the 
treatment of Mrs. Transome's Illicit attach- 
ment. In the former, the sin of marriage 
when opposition Is made by that part of one's 
nature which should be obeyed, Is clearly 
shown. Marriage, which should be the 
crown of a life, Is here an abdication— abdi- 
cation of that royalty which thrones Itself In 
principle. In the latter, the joys, the brief 
life, of passion, fluttering between anguish 
and happiness, are left entirely to the read- 
er's imagination, and trie writer's art is con- 
centrated on showing the results of this short 
madness in a gray head bowed with shame, 
a life chained by common knowledge of guilt 
to a base ana selfish mind, and a weary liv- 
ing beneath this crushing burden. Evil is 
painted here in no more alluring colors than 
In the play of Bleak House. It is a gloomy 
picture, but a very Impressive one. In "Felix 
Holt* ' the gloom is relieved both by the larg- 
er national life depicted in the political con- 
tests, and In the characters of Felix and 



Esther, who supply us with a healthy stand- 
ard by which the failures of others may be 
measured. The two were made for one an 
other, and each complemented the other In 
that fullness of mutual development which 
makes the true marriage. And an ideal held 
before us is the greatest inspiration as is 
well proven by the effect of Christ's life on 
the centuries. How much more has human- 
ity learned from His life than from the fall- 
Ingsof lower men. Yet both are valuable- 
only one Is an aim , the other an aid 

I. B. H. 

'Copyright. 



K//T. \~M*si>4 fci <nM~^ -i UA^^-C^xZ' ^.^ 2 L ^ / — 



CONJUGAL ETHICS, 

As Exemplified in the Writings of 
'George Eliot.* 

t IV. 

*'A life of mistakes ,the offspring of a certain 
spiritual grandeur, Ill-matched with the 
meanness of opportunity"— this is the central 
thought of "Hiddlerharch." The potency of 
circumstances on the molding of character is 
j the theme, though George Eliot was far too 
true a seer to teach that mind Is ever 'inca- 
pable of conquering environment, or that 
is ever other than the result of misdi- 
[ rected free-will. Success is something more 
than opportunity: it is primarily the 
will which seizes opportunity and con- 
verts it to its own purposes. Where 
there Is failure, vital failure, there 
has been lack of application as well 
well as achievement, lack of judgment in 
bringing- the right forces to bear on a certain 
end, for good Intentions never succeed un- 
less patched with the force which puts them 
into action. 

Here Dorothea made her mistake. The one 
thing of which she was sure— the virtue of 
building good cottages— she was willing to. 
let slip rather than let her ideal anticipations 
acknowledge themselves disappointed. She 
had the neck-or-nothlna - impatience of youth 
which allowed her no time to test any of her 
inner feelings by comparison with outer 
facts, and so she became unfaithful over the 
few things whose fulfillment might have led 
her— indeed, surely would have led her— to 
■ tor issues. Her chief fault was her igno- 
nd in this respect, if not In that of 
her virtues, most young women are Doro- 
theas. They have little systematic training 
in ideals, little the ught of what men have a 
right to ask of them, little education in the 
demands principle requires them to make 
of the men who seek them as wives. It is 
men's demands that have educated women ; 
it is the requirements made of them by men 
that have developed their peculiar vir- 
tues—modesty, chastity, delicacy, mo- 
rality. "Each sex has a relation 
of objective reasoning to fulfill towards 
the other. Each has to criticise and mold the 
other according to its conception of what is 
.last and good. But hitherto man only has 
thus reasoned on woman. Man has been for 
ages shaping his model of woman physically 
and morally, dwelling upon and endeavoring 
to elevate and perfect her ideal as it appeared 
to him." So has woman done for man, but 
not consciously nor to the degree that man 
has for woman. She should do it mucn more 
In the future. She needs to know what de- 
mands to make and make them fearlessly. 
This will be mere and more seen as a duty 
when the practical education of women im- 
proves so that they will be no longer de- 
pendent on men for their bread, and there- 
fore no longer slaves to receive commands, 
but equals to make demands. Already this is 






much more" seen to be a duty than women at 
all realize. Coventry Patmore, the "conjugal 
poet," s: 

Oli, wasteful woman! she who may 
On ! ( t ber own prii 

J low hath she cheapened Paradise/ / 

and spilled the wiue 
Tliat makes brutes men and men divine! 

And Robert Browning-, in his pathetic 

mouologuo of "Ancirea del Sarto. called the 
Faultless Painter," makes him apostrophize 
his wire thus: 

But had you— oh, with the same perfect brow, 
And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth— 
Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind '. 
Some women do so. Thai the mouth there urged 
"God and the glory!*'" Never care for gain. 
The present by the future, wiiat is that? 
Live for fame, side by side- with Agnoiol 
Raphael is waiting. Up to God all three! 
-ht have done it for you. 

What woman of sensibility would feel other- 
vise than crushed by being rebuked for such 
at failure in her highest mission? Yet, as 
Browning goes on to say: 

Incentives come from the soul's self; 
The rest avail not. 

And the man is a coward who repeats or va- 
ries Adam's old cry, "The woman did tempt 
me, and I did eat." 

If the laws of morality were taught, and 
their consequences when broken (which is an 
incorrect, If prevalent, form of speech, for 
we can break no laws, wo can only break 
and mangle ourselves against them) ; If the 
equal demands of justice on both sexes were 
made clear, then there would not be the blind 
Infatuations, the sudden impulse of love for 
one totally unworthy, the obstinate clinging 
to a person who has violated all the laws 
of ; morality and kindness, which 
cause so much conjugal misery now. 
Dorothea's mistake was a slight one com- 
pared with what; many make, but everyone 
who does make a mistake, whether great or 
small, could learn from her how to endure Its 
consequences and support herself nobly un- 
der them. Here Is where Dorothea's strength 
is shown, as her weakness is evidenced by 
her choice. The* gradual growth In her of a 
sympathy which Ignores self In the endeavor 
to make richer and broader a narrow and 
selfish man's life. Is a picture well worth con- 
templating. When she says to Will Ladlslaw, 
"I have often thought since I have been In 
Borne that most of our lives would look much 
uglier and more bungling than the pictures, 
if they could bo put on the wall," one feels 
that this Is not true of her life. In making 
the best of her mistake she works out a con- 
sistent and beautiful character. It Is the 
story of Ignorance growing painfully Into 
without losing innocence, but Instead 
developing a sure virtue. Even her relations 
with Ladlslaw,. defiled as Lasaubon tries to 
make them appear by his base suspicions, 
are of a luminous clearness, and the only 
thing one has to regret Is that she should have 
married him at the end. 






The man who was really the man for her, 
as she was the woman for him, and whom 
she might have married had she and he been 
less impatient at first, was neither of her 
husbands, but Lydgate. Each could have 
given to the other the encouragement, in- 
sight and sympathy each needed. On the 
contrary, the marriago between Rosamond 
and Lyderate is one of those blind leadings by 
an impulse not even love, lured on by the 
ambition of the woman, which results in mis- 
ery and degradation, and to which Lydgate's 
nobler life -was totally sacrificed. The temp- 
tations to which each yielded, Dorothea and 
Lydgate, might be called the feminine and 
masculine sides of the same problem. Each 
was led away from the best by yielding to im- 
pulses untested by experience or principle, 
though they were impulses of a not unwor- 
thy nature. Lydgate married Rosamond out 
of pity and tenderness for so pretty a thing 
In sorrows and Dorothea married Lasaubon 
out of desire to serve. These are certainly 
the masculine and feminine motives, and not 
those of a low kind; but marriage is too 
sacred to be entered into for such slight 
reasons, and the Nemesis which awaits a 
mistake, even if made with no matter what 
good intentions, overtook them speedily. 

In Fred Vinjly and Mary Garth the measure 
of a true marriage is given. Here Mary 
makes demands of Fred, and does not accept 
him until they have been fulfilled. She lives 
up to her highest duty of making his love for 
her serve to the perfecting of his character. 
As George Eliot says, "Even much stronger 
mortals than Fred Viniy hold half their recti- 
tude in the mind of the being 
they love best. 'The theater of all 
my actions is fallen,' said an antique 
personage when his chief friend died; and 
they are fortunate who get^theater where 
the audience demands their best." This 
Is the secret of the ennobling power of love. 
What a man can not demand of himself love 
comes to demand of him, and what love can 
not, the woman loved does. If the woman, 
thon, contents herself with less than his 
best, thus lowering the ideal of him who is 
striving to gain her esteem, how can she 
blame him if he fails? 

Quite the opposite of Mary's and Fred's 
marriage is that of (fiia and Sir James. This 
is one of those common-place, bread-and- 
butter marriages where little is demanded 



and little given. It conies under the con- 
demnation of AUlrich's words: 

Tliey fail, and they alone, who have not striven. 
We now come to -'Daniel Deronda,". the 
last and to my thinking most powerful novel 
of George Eliot's. Its only rival is "Adam 
Bede," and that, though more concentrated 
on a few figures, and therefore more dra- 
matic, does not have the wide reach and the 
portraiture of not alone individual but na- 
tional life, not alone national but religious 
life— which Is at once circumference and 
center— that we find in Daniel Deronda. In 
her other books George Eliot gives us many 
forms of real life, from the farm hand to the 
noble lady, but nowhere has she presented us 
with a more consummate portrait ot "life as 
it is" than in Gwendolen and Grandcourt, 
while at the same time she has set beside it 
"life as it should be" in the persons of Mirah 
and Deronda. What in "Romola" she did 
with individuals she here does with the whole- 
ness of conjugal pairs. Grandcourt carries 
out Gwendolen's lower nature to its full 
completeness, as Deronda carries outMiran's 
higher nature: the first is the Tito idea of all 
for self, the second the Romola idea of all for 
principle. 

Deronda and Mirah have been criticised as 
not being flesh-and-blood creations, not be- 
ing real; but this seems to me rather the 
fault of the public training tliau of the char- 
acters. We have been educated on the kind 
of "realism" which is life in its evil and 
therefore abnormal conditions. Evil has 
limitations; good has none; the evil deed or 
evil character is therefore much easier 
grasped and described than the good deed or 
the good character. It is far less trouble to 
caricature a person than to depict him truth- 
fully; it requires less Knowledge to make a 
discord than a harmony, as any one may 
prove by setting a child at the piano. Thus 
we hear much more of evil, or at best conflict. 
with evil, while good is really more preva- 
lent. It is the question again of the three 
forms of art: the tragic, the conflict with 
temptation and its overthrow; and the pre- 
sentation of the more perfect character where 
temptation does not come within the domain 
of self, but remains always exterior. Some 
one compared temptation to that page whose 
master ■^B& was imprisoned and who went 
searching through Europe with his flute, 
knowing that when his master should hear a 
certain strain he would reply with the con- 
tinuation of it. There was no imprisoned 
evil in Mirah 's or Deronda's heart to answer; 
theyweie always silent when sin called, or 
answered only to rebuke. 

The chief temptation which carne near to 
Deronda was that of self-sacrifice. Except 
for his position towards Mirah he would have 
been drawn into the idea of marrying Gwen- 
dolen in order to save her, and thus could 
not have done her the good of awakening; her 
individual conscience which he actually did 
by living true to himself and to Mirah. But the 



altruism or ins nature came very near mis- 
leading him, for there Is a sin of self-sacrifice. 
When we say we must be self-centered and 
true to self, we mean God-centered and true 
to principle. "Sin is nothing else than that the 
creature wilieth otherwise than as God will- 
eth." How often our own will \ells us that 
we can be of use to another, and urges us 
with fine words to dedicate ourselves to the 
service of another, and decks this out in no- 
ble names, calling it self-sacrifice and self- 
consecration, when it Is really self-will and 
selt-desecration, and we are presumptuous 
in taking upon ourselves the burden of an- 
other when principle does not demand lt,and 
while there is God to depend upon. But 
thought is not de^d, and to strive to per- 
suade one's inner consciousness that a cer- 
tain course of action is the highest, only to 
find that really the truth lies the other way 
and that one is incapable of so transposing 
duties is to be in error, but not to fail. One 
cleaves to one's Ideal through the most In- 
sidious temptation, and he that overcometh 
is clothed In white raiment, as Is Deronda. 

Gwendolen has a much more poisonous 
temptation, and one by which, in yielding to 
it, she brings upon herself the most terrible 
retributive effects. A consummate portrait- 
ure of selfishness made Into a fine art, and 
guided by a love of power which Is untouched 
by tenderness or conscience, and is unwaver- 
ing in its persistence, we have given us In 
Grandcourt. Xothing could be more piti- 
lessly consistent than his character. He is 
simply unmoved-except to delight in cru- 
elty-amld all the misery he causes. Such a 
nineteenth century torture as that of the 
yacht is exquisitely fiendish both In concep- 
tion and execution, and when he is drowned 
one can not imagine him as reappearing in 
another world with other than the perfect 
self-satisfaction he took with him from this 
But to Gwendolen there is no such thing as 
satisfaction. Sue can not be contented with 
the goods she purchased at such a dear 
cost. She could not have been without them 
She had her terrible trials to go through in 
order to eradicate that love of luxury and 
feeling that the world was made for her 
which was the deepest evil of tier character' 
She did evil knowing it to be evil, and choos- 
ing the sin and Its consequences rather than 
the right. It is only possible to forgivo such 
a sin when repentance has put it far from us 
and we, like Gretchen, shudder to thiuk of it! 

As long as one would repeat a sin one is In ! 
the inferno; there is no hope In that state ' 
When sin changes to pain and one would be 
purified from it, one is in the purgatorio, and 
sure to reach blessedness at last. Repent- 
ance is the one immeasurable power-it 
commands forgiveness. For what is forgive- '' 
ness but the recognition of the synthesis of 
good after the analysis of evil? One is not as 
one was. Before, one was unconscious 
of the evil in one's own nature 
Temptation comes to call it forth 
that we may become conscious of It and thus 



eradicate it. But instead, perhaps, we fall 
before it for a time, as Gwendolen did. Then 
comes retribution, remorse and ropeutauce, 
the three sharp swords which kill the evil in 
us, and when we recover wo can not be de- 
ceived by our passions again ; we have passed 
from ignorauce to virtue. It remains for 
those who come after us, for whom we have 
thus made straight the way, like John— only- 
baptizing with our own tears— to have the 
innocence of wisdom, the nature where every 
evil may tempt and call and find no answer 
"Only heaven means crowned, not v 
quished, when It says forgiven." Such is 
the only true forgiveness, the only kind worth 
having or worthy of the name. 

This adequacy of repentance io restore us, 
or to lead us beyond our former selves, com- 
bined with a solemn sense of the irrevocabil- 
ity of deeds and their consequences, is the 
most important teaching of George Eliot. 
She does not let us caress ourselves with the 
thought that an easy repentance, oven when 
it mean| amendment of life, is going to 
cleanse us from the actual consequences of 
evil deeds. The proof of true repentance is 
being willing to endure all that may come 
and recognize it as less than one's due for rhe 
sin committed. In the Purgatorio the spirits 
plunge into fire with gladness, because they 
know it purges. At the same time, this slate 
has its own heavenly reward. Heaven is 
within us, and there we have the peace of 
mind and gladness of soul which comes with 
putting away evil. It is Bulwer, I thii 
who pointed out that there Is nothing com- 
parable to the relief of the body from the 
rack except the relief of the mind from a 
guilty thought. 

Lanier says: "Gwendolen suddenly dis- 
covered (after coming under the close in- 
fluences of Deronda) that life is not only 
worth living, nut that the possibility of 
making one's life a good life invests It with a 
romantic interest whose depth is influi-. 
beyond that of all the society pleasures which 
had hitherto formed her horizon." This, 
together with the untainted lives of Mlrah 
and Deronda. justify his further statement 
that if he were asked "for the most significant, 
the most tender, the most pious and alto- 
gether the most uplifting of modern books, ' ' 
he should snecify "Daniel Deronda." 
L. B. II. 

'Copyright. 






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